AHHHHH....Wingspan Part III

Ah, finally, a win.  Glad it wasn't based on the points of birds only, because that was the one thing I was completely ignoring.  Proof that winning all four end of round events won't necessarily win you the game.  It was close despite that victory. 

ARGHHH....Wingspan Part II

 What did I say in that last post?  This is the AI trying to humiliate me.  There's no call for this.

ARGHHH...Wingspan

 

I've been playing Wingspan against the AI because my family doesn't volunteer to play.  I lose a lot. I lose so much.  It's embarrassing.  Usually I can figure out the AI methodology [I think Ascension cheats and throws your card killing cards to the bottom, btw.  They'll have to prove me wrong]. I thought for sure this game was going to be different. I had a great balance of birds played, food cached on cards, eggs everywhere, good goal numbers, and solid placements including wins on all the objectives.  Fuck you Wingspan.  How do I know your AI doesn't just say "Nod got 57; let's just add one point to that for the smarter AI players and win.  He won't be able to verify the points without more effort than he's willing to put in and does he really know when we played that egg or cached that food?"

Gameholecon 2022 - Day 3 and 4

Aeryn and I have a tradition of going to Mickie's Dairy for breakfast every Gameholecon.  This year there was a big game scheduled for Sunday.  Can you tell?  There are a LOT of people in red in this photo you can't see.  It's like an iceberg.  They got rid of the banana monkey.  That was the first thing we noticed.  You can see it in an old set of GHC photos.

 

Aeryn and I played One Night Ultimate Werewolf on Sunday morning.  Definitely a younger crowd, although the guy to my left was roughly my age.  But the three people to the right you can't see are closer in age to those you can.  We played....thirteen games.  I think they played even more after we left to find a bathroom and some food.  With all those roles, it was a little tough at times.  Once there was some confusion about who was outing who as the werewolf and I commented to Aeryn, "I think they're just not certain about the rules in this case."  I was right.  In their defense, I got the doppelganger wrong when I played that role.  I acted like I truly believed I was who I'd taken a peek at when it was my turn to snoop around.

  

 

We hung out at the game library for a while and played Santorini.  Aeryn mopped the floor with my twice.  I am definitely out of practice.  I could see the loss coming and still couldn't rally.

   

 Aeryn played The Quacks of Quedlinberg and had a good time.

   

I played Munchkin Panic while Aeryn was at lunch.  I don't think this is a great game.  I prefer the standard Castle Panic, whereas this one is much more competitive.  Although you still have an everyone loses condition.  There's a card where you can kill a castle section yourself for victory points.  Three people availed themselves of it.  So mean.  Not that it mattered - I'm pretty sure we would have lost anyway, although it might have bought us a few turns.  Once those two hits to kill monsters get inside the castle, you don't have the advantage of the castle killing them off organically.  I enjoyed playing with the couple on the right.  Competitive, but really fun.  The guy to the left of me kept getting louder and louder and yelling more directions as it became obvious we were going to lose.  Him...not so much.  I do like the mix of castle cards and treasure cards in Munchkin Panic.  That's a nice change.

   

There's always a scratch and dent area at the sales tables.  It wasn't as good this year.  Although this copy of Kitsune of Foxes and Fools was still there from last year.  If everyone pays attention to boardgamegeek reviews, it will still be there when the apocalypse assures there are no more Gameholecons.  The Power Grid maps guy who has been there every year we've gone wasn't there this year.  Last year I attempted to buy a Power Grid map for Korea, but it's the only one that's sold out everywhere.  Now I'll never get a copy.  I did find Aeryn a copy of Doctor Who: The Card Game with the Twelfth Doctor expansion at half price.  I knew it wasn't supposed to be a good game, but I trust Aeryn will modify it to make it something more interesting.

  

Troyes was my favorite game of the con. I picked up a spot at the table last minute because I had a gap where I'd found Aeryn a game, but not myself.  I think those last minute adds have always been some of my favorites.  After a rocky start figuring it out, I got in the groove.  I like the mechanism where you can steal dice from other players [effectively their workers, soldiers, scholars] to use for your own sets.  There's a good mix of communal events costing everyone resources that make you have to weigh your choices about what you can live with.  Reminds me a little of Champions of Midgard in that respect, but the player interactions are taken up a notch, which I really appreciated.  I'd give it an 8/10, although part of that might have been playing a full set of four with a good group of gamers. I ordered myself a copy of this one.

   

 

We did get some gaming in at the house, so it wasn't only for sleeping.  Not as much fun without Ming there, but we made due.  Wingspan with Klund and Koleman and Aeryn.  I did not fare as well as the night before.  Lots of cards, but a brutal time trying to get food even with all the options.  Aeryn's better at this game then I am: lots of time playing it on Board Game Arena and Steam.

   

 

Me and Aeryn playing Calico.  I like Azul: Queen's Garden better, and they're somewhat similar, but it's definitely fun. I bought it for my wife from a game store over on Minnehaha Ave and we've played it once.  Aeryn and I played three times over two nights.  The last time we played with the full set of objectives rather than on learner mode.  You're trying to place tiles on your quilt with patterns and colors and then match those patterns and colors to the objective tiles. You can overlap patterns and colors and each objective can get extra points for both conditions.  Enough of a pattern in a row, attract a cat.  Enough colors near each other, attach a button. Get all the buttons, get a rainbow button.  That's pretty much the whole game.  Makes my head hurt.  Aeryn is very good at it.

   

 

More Calico.  Aeryn's Flumph isn't playing.  We went to two design events on Saturday and Sunday, per the last post.  "Monster Creation" and "Worldbuilding".  I was disappointed there were no women on the panel, but they were interesting.  My takeaway from Monster Creation...if you're doing it professionally, there's a lot more math involved to standardize the monster against the system then I would have imagined.  My take away from worldbuilding...sometimes the weird unanswered questions are really useful.  One panelist mentioned a story where knights threw something away they didn't want to be found dead with before going into battle.  A knight throwing something aside is mentioned.  But never what.  It creates a thread someone else can fill.  Even the author said he didn't know what had been thrown away.

 

Klund, Koleman, and me playing Roam.  My last game of the event [the next morning was one of the seminars, although we've played games before we leave before].  I love Roam...a fast game with a placement mechanism a little like Tetris with the players having different vantages on the board.  I was probably a bit too sleepy to be playing at that point.

The next day, we left for home and stopped at Osseo, Wisconsin for pie.  There's a brand new board game shop on main street, Boards and Bricks.  An amazing array of games.  Aeryn found a copy of Ticket to Ride Japan [and Italy] and got a discount.  Really excited because the roommate loves Japan and loves Ticket to Ride.  The bullet trains make it extra classy.

Overall: not my best Gameholecon.  I think I needed more new games, tbh.  But I learned a few I really liked, had a lot of fun with Aeryn, and didn't have a bad experience at any point, and I'm not sure I can say that about past Cons.  After all, play enough games, and you'll get a bad table.  It's like work teams in some ways, but concentrated.  A lot of different cultures in miniature in a short period of time.  I did like the relaxed pace.  I definitely didn't feel rushed.  And, props for bringing an apple and orange so I could eat some fruit.  A good lesson for future gaming events.

Gamehole Con 2021 - Day 3

Starting to feel like a lot of boardgaming yet?  No kidding.

Friday...we're not to the weekend yet.  E and I started our day by heading over to Mickie's Dairy Bar by the Madison campus.  It's a usual stop for us now and Apong picked up on it from my FB feed and headed over not long after us.  Great food - cash only, so come prepared - but huge plates, well prepared, and at great prices.  Not to mention I've never  had an unfriendly waitstaff and this time was no exception.  She went out of her way to talk to us about food and work.

First game of the day was Tournament at Camelot.  It's a trick-taking game with a twist for your primary character, secondary character, and a number of places and artifacts associated with the round table.  We had a bit of a rocky start because the coordinator hadn't played in a while and couldn't remember the difference between what basically was a round and a hand.  It made a BIG difference for play as some things weren't visible until all tricks had been played.

E's particular card combo facilitated drawing more and more specialty cards.  You can see the obvious difference between their hand and mine.

One of the best  parts of the game is that it is fairly easy to manipulate the target as you figure out the rules.  The woman across from me was point free [a good thing, think of getting points as damage] until we got a little more savvy, and then players would use "ties" in the card number/suit to pull the lowest or highest card out of contention, meaning the trick would default to the second highest or second lowest depending on the situation.  Made for some pretty spirited table talk.

This is not us.  Random people playing Cthulhu Wars.   I don't think that 90-120 minute playtime on boardgamegeek is accurate.  They seemed to have been there MUCH longer than that.  I assume they're playing with an expansion as I think the base set only accommodates up to four.  Ah, it does exit in a 6 to 8 and clocks in at at least 120: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/145039/cthulhu-wars-six-eight-player-earth-map.

Some more rando Gameholeconers.  Not sure what they're playing but they were interested in my random photo taking.  There were a couple of tables with lengthy games going on including one the next day with a huge custom Mario Kart type board game.

E and I played games with Kane Klenko, the game designer, for a few sessions.  During this one we played Fuse, a few prototypes, and Cosmic Factory pictured here.  This was a fun game - easy to pick up if you want a family game that's fast: five one minute rounds.  You're using 2x2 cards to make a 3x3 grid and score for areas with orange, areas with green, areas with blue, and continuous asteroids [like a wall in Alhambra].  Your lowest two scores are your end score.

Those cards in the middle are for snatching if you think you have the most points in one of the three planet categories.  Pick up extra points if you're right.  Lose some if you're wrong. I'm obviously going for a green planet play and wall points here.  I'm not sure what E is up to as a strategy.  Or Kane for that matter...their layouts are much less monochromatic than mine.  There are cards that mix it all up by forcing the tile draft to be different, adding black holes [removes cards], and more.

We had a gap, so went to the library to play a round of Wingspan.  I stole Klund's strategy and focused on birds that took other birds.  Even so, with big piles of point cards, E and I had close scores.

We also played Battleline.  Sean, who taught me Power Grid forever ago, also taught me this game.  Love it.  Think three card poker hands [sequential, suits, total] and any "cohort" that wins a column counts toward a win on your part either via a number of wins or sequential wins.  There are some cards for mixing it up [like wilds] and you have to pay attention, because with only one of each card, it may become impossible to win with a column and that means that column is immediately and irrevocably won by your opponent.

While E was off playing other games, I went back to Liberty Station.  My burnt ends grilled cheese from the day before was a bit too much, so I settled for a bowl of burnt end chili.  Top notch. That and a beer were the perfect amount of lunch time food.

Gaymer group.  E didn't make it to an event but bought a pin from them.

It's Apong, and he's involved in nuclear annihilation.  He's playing on the Solvanti system. I had a gap where I could have played, but it felt disappointing going to a gaming convention and playing on a computer.

That said, they all looked like they were having fun whenever I saw folks using the pads.  Honestly, with everyone in the same place, it's just a LAN party.

Mike hosted Shadows Over Camelot.  Not to be confused with the Camelot game earlier.  I had watched a video on this one randomly in the past and was interested.  It's a semi-cooperative where you go on quests alone or together to gain renown for the round table.  But someone is the traitor.

Both Eryn and I felt it suffered a bit because we had younger [e.g. 8?] players and they'd go a little OCD at times trying to make sure all the knights were on the right colored seats, etc.  In the end, we kind of let the person we knew was the traitor slide so he could finish the game by placing the last catapult.  With another group, might be more fun, but I don't think I'd consider it a go to game for replayability if I owned it.

I was Sir Gawain.  My power was drawing two cards at Camelot.

That shirt across from me is the traitor.  At this point in the game, we had five white swords, but you really need 7-8 to try and force a victory.

Way more swords, but there are a LOT of catapults out there, and when there are 12, game over [so really when there are about 11 because the traitor can try and play one on purpose as their "bad event" each turn].

Setup.  I swear I played no less than four games with Picts in them over Gameholecon.  Picts are big.

E went off to play games and prototypes with Kane and Klund.  I, on the other hand, bred peppers and used those peppers to create chili in Scoville.  It was fun...but most of the mechanisms have better implementations in other games.

The trick is walking between the rows like in Children of the Corn to breed better peppers by combining the colors.  Brown peppers are generally gross, but you can sell them, and they are used in recipes.  White and Ghost and Black peppers are better, although you need those other colors for optimal scoring.  

The winner had very few recipes.  You could win by a few other methods.  I put in a good showing by having a lot of smaller points on recipes and on the market cards.  Here's the card for cross referencing pepper colors.  The x was the big one to avoid...everything else had some sort of use.  Downside to the game was constantly referecing the card if you hadn't played it a few times already.

Friday night...bedtime.  I went back, made some chicken at almost 11 p.m. because I'd missed dinner while gaming and E had a brat.  E and Klund got back LATE - they hung with Kane for a long time discussing the pros and cons of the prototypes and discussing possible changes.  Sounded like a better time than Scoville.

Gamehole Con 2021 - Day 2 Part 2

Ut oh, out of order already.  I played Paladins of the West Kingdom before I played Honga.  Ah well, you weren't there; you wouldn't even know if I hadn't said something.  I promised you a picture of the wizard yesterday....here he is.  There's always a lot of cosplay, although the cosplayers who vape sort of ruin the effect.

The Edible Gummies Kickstarter gave us these samples in the vendor area.  These are the spicy ones.  I ate them this morning.  I did not like them. I had to drink some very strong coffee to wash them away.  Apparently they are hopping habanero and jalapeno jump start.  Perhaps you should have to eat them if you lose a challenge in Spicy [the card game of spice eating competitive lying large cats]. They are donating a bunch of gummies to the Children's Miracle Network with a focus on teenagers.  That's pretty nice.

If you want to back them there are five days left in their kickstarter.  Looks like they made their goal:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/critters-0/edible-gummy-tabletop-minis

E playing Paladins of the West Kingdom.  It was fun, but I didn't feel like I got to focus on any one thing or, even if I did, I wouldn't have gotten very far in that thing. I had a little bit of wall, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.  The mechanic to have to get rid of espionage/intrigue is interesting, but not enough to make up for the fact that I was a little bored.  Might have helped if I hadn't just played Hadrian's Wall.  There are some strong similarities and I liked Hadrian's Wall better.

Here are several pictures of E playing their houses and meeples and such.  It'll give you an idea of how much moving things around there is for not much traction.  I know there are people who think it's the best.  Eh.  I'm happy for them.  It's a 69 [rank] on boardgamegeek which puts it in some rarefied territory.

 

I should make an animated GIF out of E's photos.

I really like this one.  Can't tell if they're excited or trying to make a particularly tough decision.

If it was a tough decision, crisis resolved.

I wasn't signed up for a late game, but managed to grab the last ticket for Wingspan a full sixty seconds before it started.  The digital signup is a great system compared to the paper tickets they used to use.  I had one problem with an event that recorded as paid but didn't show up and they resolved it at the IT desk in about five minutes.

Klund, E, and Karsen already were signed up.  That's Mike facilitating.  He facilitated quite a few of our games [this year and prior years].  Great guy.  Very friendly, very patient, although he misplaced the goal cards and had to send a runner for backups.

Here he is doing that patient explaining of why I have a hand full of birds.

This game is a few years old now, but I'd never played it despite an interest. I'm glad on got in on the session.  It may have been E's favorite of the weekend.  Straightforward, cards reinforce and play off each other, there are a few strategies you pick up quickly, the art is beautiful, and it moves fast from player to player even in later stages.  I found myself comparing it to the gameplay for Paladins, and I definitely appreciated Wingspan more.

My birds.  I focused on the woodlands and egg collection, although at this point in the game that's not obvious. Later I had the first two rows filled and most of the third row.  But my birds were not particularly high valued / point birds.

A spirited discussion about ornithology.

.

Karsen wins this one if I remember right.  Klund had a voracious owl who busily ate a whole stack of other birds [which became points], but didn't win any of the round goals or have as many eggs so he trailed in the end.  You can tell it's getting late on a weeknight in this photo with all the cleared out tables.

I must have these photos backwards, because the goal isn't to remove the birds and the eggs. Well...in some cases it is...but not as an overall strategy.

It was about ten p.m. by the time we were done with Wingspan, but we weren't done for the night. At the AirBnB we started a three player game of Power Grid, US side of the map.  E wasn't having it and wandered off to find some sleep. In retrospect, this was a good idea on E's part.  We played until 1:30 a.m. and I don't think I fell asleep until closer to 2:15 or later.  The difference between two and three player Power Grid is one of magnitudes. So much more fun and a ton of interaction on the later bidding to secure the right power plants, the right resources, and to correct anyone who can't count their money [cough, Karsen].

In case it's not obvious from this photo, I managed to power all seventeen of my cities and then some despite Klund trying to buy up all the blocking property.

I snapped a picture of my sleep profile the next morning.  Amusingly, that 62 resting heart rate is also WAY, WAY over what it usually is.  I generally sit right about 50, often less.  Side effect of all the bicycling.  I'm going to guess gaming situations spiked me here and there.  Fun to realize the competition gets me a little wound up on the inside, even if not [as much] on the outside.